February 03, 2009

February 3, 2009: Leadership Personified - Dwight Eisenhower

Is there a dearth of solid leadership in our country at present? Those under the age of fifty have not had the privelidge of living in a time of true statesmanship - the willingness to work as a political leader in a non partisan fashion with the life experience of a military backround in the world's most brutal war, coupled with coping with an extended economic depression, communist expansionism and social ills such as segregation and intolerance on the home front (much of it unrecognized at the time).

Our country, by some measure in perilous times, would do well to remember General of the Army and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a humble man whom history may well regard as one of our greatest citizens and a true leader.

Here are a few (and perhaps surprising) observations from this exceptional American:

"Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they never existed."

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."

"A people that values its priviledges above its principals soon loses both."

"When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept."

"War settles nothing."

"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security."

"The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good."

"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spititual fiber of a nation is more importnat than its wealth."

"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without."

"Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs."

"Plans are nothing;planning is everything."

"Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage."

"It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger."

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want because he wants to do it."

"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

"Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg."

"Pessimism never won any battle."

"If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it."

"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking...is freedom."

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of the way and let them have it."